Concering Mountains

This time it wasn't so hard to decide on pictures, the one above is one of my favourite pictures of this gap year. Project Trust photo competition winner, anyone? Anyway, last week, the day after Hakone, I climbed Mount Takao. Takao-san is another popular visit for people looking for a day escape from the big city, and I was up for conquering a mountain in the name of Britain. I climbed from the very bottom to the very top, and felt only slightly idiotic because of it - there was a cablecar to about a third of the way up but I decided the entire climb would ensure better photos. Not only was the first third the most painful climb ever, so steep, but there was also nothing at all to see. Never mind, I guess it added to the sense of achievement.


As you can see from the pictures the weather wasn't so great. But this wasn't a bad thing because it made for some great misty pictures in the temples at the top. It was a really cool temple aswell, and I managed to arrive when a Buddhist ceremony was starting. I heard drums as I entered the temple complex and ran up some stairs but just missed them - I could still hear the ceremony going on inside but didn't want to intrude. A little while later I managed to see a procession of monks chanting, but I didn't want to take a photo - I'm sure they wouldn't have minded, but it just didn't quite feel right. So instead I bought a Buddhist wallhanging from the temple to commemorate the climb. The way back down was so much better than the way up, aswell. I took a less walked route (theres 7 routes up and down) that went alongside a river, from where it more or less first forms up the mountain. It was a really picturesque and scenic walk, and well worth the long time it took to walk back down. It's sometimes nice to steer clear of the beaten path, even if it was blatantly a used route I didn't see a single person all the way down which added so much to the journey.

This is one of those "what you can see in the distance" view points. I tell you now, I saw nothing of the sort in the distance. Being able to see Tokyo from here my eye. Damn mist.

Well, after going on a pirate ship the day before the trip, in Hakone - I needed to find something utterly and spectacularly cool to beat it. Monkeys! The monkey park was ace! I even saw a monkey do a backflip. Almost forgot to say, the monkey park was the main reason I decided to climb the mountain, because how cool are monkeys?